


Modern Bride

by CommaSplice



Series: Aegon Targaryen Memorial Library Universe [9]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/F, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-17
Updated: 2014-02-17
Packaged: 2018-01-12 20:36:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,989
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1199373
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CommaSplice/pseuds/CommaSplice
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After overcoming their initial misgivings about the relationship of Sansa and Margaery, Catelyn Stark and Olenna Tyrell team up to push matters ahead faster than either of the two parties in question has planned. Sansa and Margaery find themselves dealing with helpful and not-so-helpful family members anxious to assist them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Modern Bride

**Author's Note:**

> This goes out to [my very first Anon on Tumblr](http://grammarsaveslives.tumblr.com/post/75054111269/oh-god-your-sansaery-answer-for-that-meme-accepting) who requested a story based on [this](http://grammarsaveslives.tumblr.com/post/74992637303/sansa-marg-sansa-roose-sansan-this-has-been-the).
> 
> Even though this is set in a series, it can be read on its own.

* * *

Ned let himself into the house. The place was quiet, which instantly raised every parental hackle he had. Then he consulted the calendar on the wall of the kitchen. Arya was in class. Bran was playing soccer and then attending some scouting thing tonight to which Robb had agreed to take him. Robb and Theon were grown men and were trustworthy enough that he didn’t have to worry they were trying to make TNT or meth merely because they’d read an article explaining how to do it. He would be glad when they found places of their own to live. He would talk to Cat about dropping another hint or three. They were out of the service now. They had jobs. They were grown. They needed to move out.

The only one unaccounted for was Rickon. Ned peered out the kitchen window. Nothing outside seemed to be on fire and there hadn’t been any emergency service vehicles on the road when he’d driven home. That was always a good sign. Still, he’d check up on Rickon when he went upstairs. 

He loosened his tie and was unbuttoning his shirt as he wandered into the living room when he let out a startled yelp.

“I’ve spoken to Loras and—”

“Olenna,” Ned managed as he tried to do up the buttons again. 

“You’re home early,” Catelyn said smoothly. 

“So are you.”

She waved this away. 

Ned took in the nearly empty bottle of wine and a pile of glossy bridal magazines on the coffee table. “We rescheduled the faculty meeting.” He greeted Olenna. Now that he was back in the history department, he didn’t see her nearly so often. 

“I would ask you to join us if I didn’t think you’d be bored to tears.” Catelyn smiled at him broadly.

“Who’s getting married?”

Catelyn rose. She poured a healthy slug of wine into a glass and handed it to him. “We’re just chatting. I know how hard you’ve been working. Why don’t you go into your study and read for a bit?”

He allowed himself to be bustled off although he opted for upstairs rather than his study. Both Olenna and Cat gave him fixed smiles that he correctly interpreted as “go away now, there’s a good boy.” He didn’t know when Cat and Olenna had become so chummy. Judging by their camaraderie, they’d gone straight from uneasy acquaintances to unholy allies. He wondered if he should be concerned.

* * *

Even though Margaery and Sansa both relied exclusively on their cell phones, because the apartment in Oldtown belonged to Margaery’s parents, it had a landline. As the only calls they got on it were from telemarketers, when it rang Margaery was in no hurry to answer it. The answering machine clicked on.

“Hello, this is Robb Stark. I’m calling for—”

Margaery grabbed the phone. “Hi Robb! It’s Margaery. Sansa is at class, but she’ll be back soon—”

“It was actually you I wanted to speak to. I don’t have your cell number or I would have called it.”

“Oh, let me give it to you now.” She rattled off her digits. She didn’t know Robb terribly well, but she liked all of Sansa’s siblings. The only one she had yet to meet was Jon. “When we come back to King’s Landing for the break, we should get together.”

“I cannot have sex with you,” he blurted out.

Margaery took the receiver in her hand and stared at it a moment. “I don’t think I heard you correctly.”

“I want to be supportive, but it’s out of the question. I can’t sleep with you.” He hung up.

She was still standing in exactly the same position when Sansa came back into the apartment. 

“What’s going on?”

“Robb just called and told me he couldn’t have sex with me,” Margaery said in a slightly stunned voice.

Sansa set down her bookbag. “This is what happens when you flirt with anything that moves. Robb is a little stupid when it comes to girls. I’ll call him back and tell him you didn’t mean anything by it.”

“I haven’t talked with him in a month and a half.” 

“And you were gushy about his looks when you did. Don’t worry about it. He can be a dork. I’ll take care of it.”

“All I said was that he had great hair, which he does. I wanted to know what he uses on it, okay? For Loras?” The machine beeped and Margaery realized it had never stopped recording. She pressed the play button and made Sansa listen to the call.

“Okay, that was weird,” Sansa agreed. “Just give me a second and I’ll call Robb and find out what prompted him to tell you something that crazy.”

Margaery wasn’t quite ready to let it go. “Asking someone about what kind of conditioner they use is not flirting.”

Sansa was busy powering up her laptop. 

“My brother’s hair has a tendency to frizz and the last product he used—” She stopped short. Sansa’s face was twisted in the weirdest way. 

“Forget about Loras’ hair,” Sansa said. “Mum just sent me an article she thought I’d find ‘helpful.’” In a strangled voice, she read the title of it aloud, “‘Brother Donates Sperm to Help Lesbian Sister-in-law Conceive.’”

* * *

Robb was used to being the one who got his brothers out of scrapes. He was the steady one. Theon called him boring, but he too depended on Robb when he made a bad decision. Now he was on the receiving end of the incredulous looks and it felt very uncomfortable.

They weren’t holding back on the ridicule either.

“You’re dating a nurse,” Theon said between howls of laughter. 

“That’s not relev—” Robb tried, but they were off again. His only consolation was that Arya wasn’t around. 

Bran was looking it up on the internet. “You don’t actually have sex with Margaery. It looks like you jack off into a cup and they do something in a lab or a doctor’s office and she gets pregnant that way.” 

“Don’t you think I know that?” Robb demanded.

Theon wiped his eyes and made one final gasping chuckle. “Then why did you tell Margaery that you couldn’t have sex with her?” 

Robb looked at his youngest brother. “Because this one here said they were worried about the expense.”

Everyone turned to Rickon. 

“That’s what Mum and Mrs. Tyrell were saying,” Rickon said defensively. "They were talking about who would pay for everything.”

“The Tyrells are rich,” Bran pointed out after a moment. “I’m pretty sure they could pay for Margaery to get inseminated or whatever it is they do.”

Robb groaned. The Tyrells owned more than half of the Reach. Somehow he’d forgotten that little fact when he’d rushed to the phone. 

“And didn’t Margaery say last New Year’s that she has money of her own?” Theon persisted. “She said something about coming into a trust when she turned twenty-five.”

“'And I never said it had anything to do with a baby. They were talking about dresses and ceremonies, I think.”

Robb groaned. He had reacted instantly after Rickon had reported on this conversation. “What was I thinking? What got into me?”

Bran, Rickon, and Theon all answered him at the same time, “Stark logic.”

* * *

Sansa was trying to figure out how to explain it to Margaery. “Stark logic is . . .”

“Insane?” suggested Margaery. She clearly had not forgiven Sansa for thinking she had been coming onto Robb. “All I said to him was that he had great hair.”

“If you would let me finish,” Sansa began, but then she couldn’t come up with the right words. 

“Loras has always had difficult hair. The humidity makes it frizz. Naturally curly hair is very hard to manage—”

Sansa held up a hand. “I am sorry I ever said you were flirting with Robb, okay? Forget about his hair. Forget about your brother’s hair. For five minutes, can we not talk about hair?”

Margaery had the grace to stop. “Fine. Explain ‘Stark logic’ to me.”

“The first thing you need to know is that it’s not logical,” Sansa began. “It’s a family trait. Normal people go from A to B to C. We go from A to B to Z and it ends up being messy. Like the time Arya left her homework in her locker at school over the weekend.” Sansa propped herself on her elbow to face Margaery. “She didn’t tell Mum or Dad and have them call the school. It didn’t even occur to her. She went down there with her friends and they spotted the custodian by the loading dock, having one last cigarette before he went home for the night. He dropped his keys when he was getting into his car. I guess the ones for the school were on a separate ring. She and her friends waited till he was gone; picked up the keys; and let themselves into the school. Arya got her homework; they went hunting for the old bomb shelter—the one that had been closed off years ago because of the asbestos—and then after they couldn’t find that, they headed out the same door they came in. This was when the police caught them.”

Margaery sat up. “Why didn’t they just call after the custodian?”

“Arya said,” Sansa paused. She stared up at the ceiling and tried to remember her sister’s exact words. “She told Mum and Dad that the custodian didn’t like her; that they’d always wanted to see the bomb shelter; and that she knew if she didn’t hand in her social studies project on time our parents would be furious. Stark logic.” 

“That makes no sense.”

“Neither does Robb taking two scraps of conversation—one of which he didn’t even overhear himself—and concluding that we wanted a baby and that we wanted him to have sex with you to get one.”

Margaery thought a bit. “Is this like when Bran and Rickon couldn’t get to their bikes because Grandmother’s car was blocking the garage door, and Rickon stole the keys and backed it into mine, rather than just asking us to move them?” 

“Yes.”

“Or when my girlfriend, who should know better, concluded that because her crazy brother phoned me up and announced that he couldn’t have sex with me, that I somehow had given him provocation to assume that I did?”

Sansa smiled weakly. “You got it.” It did sound pretty awful the way Margaery was putting it.

Margaery wasn’t smiling back. “I want an apology from Robb and I want to know what he does to keep his hair from frizzing.”

* * *

Robb tripped over every other word, but at last he got out the apology.

“Thank you,” Margaery said icily. “I happen to love Sansa very much.“

“I know. I’m sorry, Margaery. I really am.”

She grabbed a notepad. “Good.”

“I need to think about donating sperm. I know Sansa—”

“What?”

“Bran said that’s how it’s done.”

“No one wants your sperm, Robb. Sansa and I need to get through graduate school right now. We haven’t even talked about having children. If and when we decide to go down that path, we will explore our options. Right now, neither of us wants kids. Your sperm is not even on the table.”

Sansa looked like she wanted to sink through the floor.

“Now about your hair.”

“What about my hair?”

“Didn’t Sansa tell you?” She glared at Sansa and mouthed “Why didn’t you ask him?”

Sansa made an “I forgot” face.

There was a pause. 

“Take me through your hair care regimen.”

“I wash it every other day?”

“With what? What kind of conditioner do you use? How do you dry it?”

Robb sounded confused. “I don’t dry it. I look like the father on _The Brady Bunch_ if I dry it. I use this stuff Jon sends me. The Night’s Watch makes it and sells it.”

“The Night’s Watch sells their own shampoo?”

“They sell a lot of things. I guess they have the involuntaries doing it to help fund the expense of feeding and clothing them. They make a great brandy and . . . flour, I think. Aunt Lyanna swears by their hand soap. I use their conditioner too. Why don’t I have Jon send you some stuff? My treat. It’s the least I can do.”

Margaery rattled off Loras’ address. “It’s for my brother.”

“Oh.” 

She heard voices in the background and then what sounded like a scuffle.

“Hi, Margaery! This is Rickon.”

“Hi, Rickon.”

“If you want my sperm, you can have it.”

Evidently not to be outdone, Bran’s voice could be heard chiming, “You can have mine too.”

“Give me the phone back. She doesn’t want your sperm, you freaks. No, don’t. SHE DOESN’T WANT YOUR SPERM.”

There was a loud thud.

Sansa was looking at Margaery with full attention now. “What’s going on?”

Robb’s voice wafted into the phone as if from a distance. “Dad, I can explain.”

There were more noises now.

“It’s Arya. Dad’s on it.”

Relieved to hear a voice of reason, Margaery thanked her. 

“Am I going to have to wear some stupid pink dress?”

“For what?”

“For when you and Sansa get married. Rickon said he heard Mum and Mrs. Tyrell talking about attendance and my name came up. He means attendants, right? Like for your wedding party?”

Not for the first time since picking up the phone, Margaery felt like she was underwater. “We would never make you wear a pink bridesmaid’s dress. It would clash with Sansa’s hair.”

Sansa looked thoroughly alarmed. “Who’s saying we’re getting married?”

“If we were getting married,” Margaery assured Arya, and by default Sansa, “which we aren’t.”

“You might want to tell Mum and Mrs. Tyrell that. They’ve got a Pinterest board and everything.”

* * *

“Another one?” Sansa asked as she did her stretches on the living room floor. “ _Modern Bride_?”

Margaery flopped gracefully onto the sofa. “ _Westerosi Weddings_ ,” she corrected. 

“Shit.” Sansa folded her calf in and bent over again. “How many does that make now?”

“Four.” Margaery dumped the bridal magazine onto the growing pile on the coffee table. “We are now getting four subscriptions to bridal magazines. It could be a joke. Loras—”

“I could see him sending us one magazine, Margaery, but four?”

“One of your brothers or Arya?”

Sansa shook her head. “Those things aren’t cheap and Arya would never waste her money like that. It’s got to be your grandmother.” She switched legs. “I laid down the law with my family. Sounds like it’s time for you to do the same with yours.”

“How long are you going to be?”

“Five more minutes and then I want to shower.”

Margaery considered the stack. She grabbed them. “I’m going to do a little sleuthing,” she told her as she went into the room that served as part craft room and part office.

Sansa thought it was wasted effort, but if Margaery wanted to wait on hold forever until she was connected to the requisite human beings to get her answers, that was her problem. Sansa finished stretching, showered, changed, and then found Margaery who was in the process of hanging up the phone. 

“Grandmother,” she pronounced glumly. “I’ll call her later.”

“Good, because I’m not ready for marriage.” She pointed to the stack of articles on adoption, artificial insemination, and in vitro fertilization Mum had sent her. “Or a baby.”

* * *

When the wedding invitation came, they stared at it for a while as if expecting it to bite them. It had been well over a month since any member of either of their families had offered biological, emotional, or financial support for when and if they decided to marry or have children. After a lot of pleading, arguing, and finally demanding, Sansa’s mother and Grandmother had backed off, but all things bridal or baby-related were making both Margaery and Sansa very skittish.

“Dad did say that Uncle Brandon was getting married again.” Sansa slit the envelope open. “Next month.”

“That’s pretty quick, isn’t it?”

“It is his fifth marriage,” Sansa pointed out. “You’re coming with me, right? It’s the 22nd.”

Margaery was game. She would finally get to meet Jon as well as Sansa’s aunt and uncles. “What’s the bride like?” 

“I’ve never met her. Dad said she and Uncle Brandon were a thing, but that was way before I was born. I think Uncle Brandon was engaged to Mum back then and it all fell apart when she found out he was having an affair with this.” She consulted the invitation for the name. “Barbrey Ryswell Dustin. And then she married someone else. And Uncle Brandon kept on marrying other people.” Sansa looked at Margaery very seriously. “You’ll have to be careful with him. He’s all hands. I’ve watched him in action.”

“Sansa Stark, if you start up about me flirting, I will have to—” They’d had this out and Margaery had thought it was all settled. 

“You could be one of the Silent Sisters. It wouldn’t matter.”

Margaery arched her eyebrows. “At his own wedding?”

“He was all over Robb’s girlfriend at wedding #4. I don’t mean he’d actually try to sleep with you, but I wouldn’t put it past him to pinch your bum or leer at you. Uncle Brandon likes the ladies.”

This probably explained why “no gifts” was discreetly printed in the corner of the invitation. “It sounds like it will be interesting.”

But in the end, it was actually surprisingly moving. After Sansa’s dire warnings, Margaery wasn’t quite sure what to expect of Brandon Stark. He turned out to be a very charming man. It was true he had a propensity for staring at her breasts more than was necessary, but he was funny and witty, and he seemed content with the acerbic Barbrey. 

Really there had only been two hiccups. The first was the very long moment when Barbrey revealed she’d once been Roose Bolton’s sister-in-law. But then disaster was averted when Barbrey volunteered the sentiment that it was a shame Sansa hadn’t killed him sooner. 

And then there had been the extremely uncomfortable antipathy between the bride and Catelyn Tully Stark. After the two women decided the only thing to do was to have rather a lot to drink together, that was gone too. Margaery couldn’t help but notice that their newfound friendship seemed to make both the groom and Sansa’s father oddly nervous.

Jon had even better hair than Robb. He was also much more forthcoming with how he got it to look so good. 

The Starks en masse were overwhelming, but they were friendly to her and Sansa seemed very happy getting caught up with everyone. 

During a lull in the preparation for the festivities, she took Margaery to see all of her old haunts.

“You never told me how beautiful it is up here,” Margaery commented as they walked through the glass gardens. “This is just gorgeous.”

“This is my favorite spot. Uncle Brandon grows vegetables back there." Sansa gestured toward the rear of the structure. "But I’ve always loved this part the best.”

The flowers were lovely. There were some that were more exotic than the ones back home in the Reach. "Why aren’t they having the reception here? It’s perfect.”

Sansa nodded. “I always thought so. I had it all planned when I was a teenager.” She blushed. “My own wedding, not Uncle Brandon’s.” 

“Your wedding?”

“I actually had a scrapbook,” Sansa confessed. “With pictures of the flowers I wanted, song lists for the band, my dress. Everything but the groom, although I picked out what he would wear. I think I had a picture of a man in a tuxedo. I just cut his head off because he didn’t fit my notion of what a groom should look like.”

“I had pictures too,” Margaery admitted. She’d been quiet about it. Sophisticated Margaery Tyrell did not openly gush about pretty poufy dresses or honeymoon destinations. “Why aren’t they using this place for the reception?”

Sansa sat down on a stone bench. “I don’t know. Maybe Barbrey doesn’t like flowers. I think wedding #2 was in here. Maybe they want a place all of their own. It’s too bad. Wait till you see it at night.” She pointed to the top. “There are these little lights that come on and if you’re outside looking in, it’s just stunning.”

“ _We_ could have our wedding here,” Margaery said. 

“We could,” Sansa agreed. And then very slowly, she asked, “Did you just propose to me?”

“I’m not sure.” Before they’d become a couple, Margaery had always been the aggressor in her relationships. For some odd reason, she’d never felt entirely comfortable in this role with Sansa. 

Sansa stared into the bloom of an orchid for a long time, before looking directly at her. “I am. Come here.”

Margaery sat down next to her. Her stomach fluttered the way it normally did when Sansa said things like that. She leaned in for Sansa’s kiss. As it deepened, somewhere in the back of her mind, she registered how right this truly was. This was how it was supposed to be. The kiss, the setting, Sansa, the moment. Everything was perfect.

* * *

The rehearsal dinner went well. Uncle Brandon kept his hands to himself, and then after a lot of wine, on Barbrey. Mum got very goopy with Dad and didn’t hint once about marriage or grandchildren. Jon promised to send Loras more hair care products so Margaery was happy. And the whole time Sansa and Margaery were hugging their secret to themselves. It was good.

They took advantage of the lull after dinner and returned to the glass gardens. As Sansa had promised, it was lit up. 

“We are definitely having our wedding reception here. I don’t care if I have to do calisthenics in a low-cut top to get your Uncle Brandon to agree to it.”

Sansa shook her head. “You will not need to flash him your tits in order for us to get married here. I’ll tell Barbrey all the grisly details about shooting Roose and she’ll handle it. I’m kind of surprised, though. I thought you’d want to get married from Highgarden.”

“I like the idea of a wedding in the snow.”

Sansa linked her fingers through Margaery’s. “See how you feel about that tomorrow when we’re freezing our arses off in the godswood.” She couldn’t quite believe this was happening. “After grad school, okay? I’d like us to have found jobs before we get married.”

“Definitely.”

“And I don’t want to wear a tuxedo.”

“Both of us in dresses,” Margaery promised. “A simple, elegant wedding?” She pulled Sansa into a corner and wrapped her arms around her.

Sansa wondered if they would be uninterrupted this time. “We can attempt it.”

“I don’t see what the problem is. Grandmother will love the idea and your mother has very good taste.” 

“Have you even looked at their Pinterest board?”

A devious look blossomed over Margaery’s face. It was the one that always made her want to rip off all of Margaery’s clothes. “Leave it to me. I can be Grandmother squared if I have to be. We’ll have the wedding _we_ want—not the wedding _they_ want.”

And then they heard a voice. “Just so you know, I still refuse to wear a pink dress. And if you try and make me wear something with a butt bow, I will kill you both. That goes for you too, Robb.”

“Arya,” Gendry groaned.

Arya and Gendry and then Robb and Talisa emerged from different corners of the glass gardens. They’d evidently had the same idea as Sansa and Margaery.

Sansa took Margaery’s hand and began to lead her out. Margaery stopped in front of Robb. “We may need your sperm after all.”

As they walked out, Sansa turned to Margaery. “Love me, love my family.”

Margaery smiled at her widely. “I already do.”

* * *


End file.
